Boosting recycling rates in London

The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games present a real opportunity to secure lasting sustainable benefits. London’s boroughs and waste authorities are working hard to meet this challenge - for example, by encouraging more recycling. The capital faces its own set of challenges with regards to recycling and recovery of waste, not least due to the high proportion of households living in flats or estates and the relative lack of gardens and garden waste. This briefing considers a variety of approaches to increasing recycling, re-use and composting rates and highlights how these approaches are being employed in London boroughs.

Overview

The Mayor of London’s 2011 Municipal Waste Management Strategy commits London to meeting the EU Waste Framework Directive target that London should recycle or compost at least 45 per cent of municipal waste by 2015, 50 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2031. While the rate of recycling, composting and re-use in the capital has increased by 10 per cent over the last four years (2007/07 - 2010/11), Defra statistics indicate that in 2010/11 London’s household waste recycling rate of 32.4 per cent was still nearly 10 per cent lower than the England average of 41.5 per cent.

Recent reports and initiatives

The London Assembly In 2011 the London Assembly published two reports on recycling in London. The first - ‘Carrots and Sticks’ – reviewed incentive and compulsory recycling schemes operated by London boroughs; while the second – ‘Waste not Want Not’ – considered why recycling rates vary across London.

Defra household reward and recognition scheme The government believes that it is better to reward householders for doing the right thing with their waste than to penalise them for doing the wrong thing. It is therefore encouraging councils to reward people who recycle or re-use their waste through Defra’s household reward and recognition scheme. Defra launched the reward and recognition scheme in June 2011. This made a maximum of £500,000 available for 2011/12 to local authorities and community organisations to introduce or trial new schemes that reward or recognise people or communities for adopting such positive behaviours. A second round of funding was launched in April 2012.

The Resource Association - Where does the recycling go? A recent survey conducted on behalf of the Resource Association (a new professional advocacy body for the reprocessing and recycling industries) of 2,078 adults across the UK found that 73 percent of respondents said that they don’t know the exact location of where the materials they put out for recycling go and 65 percent don’t know what these materials will be made into. In the same survey, 68 percent of adults said that more information should be available on what happens to recycled materials in terms of their destination and end use. Thirty-two percent of respondents said that they would be more or much more likely to recycle if this information was available.

The Resource Association believes that the reprocessing industry, the recycling supply chain and local authorities can and should work together to provide more public information on what happens to recycling. The Resource Association, supported by the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) Executive has launched the End Destinations of Recycling Charter. This is a voluntary commitment by councils to publish registers of end destinations of recyclates by June 2013.

Recycle for London London boroughs can receive support and resources for communication work around recycling, re-use and composting from Recycle for London (RfL) - a communications programme funded by the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) delivered in partnership by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).

Helping London recycle more London Councils recently published ‘Helping London recycle more’ – a collection of case studies looking at the different approaches taken by London boroughs to increase recycling rates in the capital. This was launched at a London Councils breakfast event which heard from some of the case studies featured and considered the role of local government in stimulating behaviour change amongst local residents in relation to waste minimisation and recycling. Some of these case studies are listed below.

Analysis London boroughs are seeking to increase recycling rate through a number of measures which can be grouped into six categories. These categories are listed below alongside examples of relevant initiatives in London boroughs.

Incentives and awards

**Case study: LB Bexley, Local green points**

Bexley was the first local authority to launch an incentive scheme organised by Local Green Points, which aims to reward residents on a community basis for waste reduction and recycling.

The first phase of the incentives scheme was launched in October 2011, covering 2,000 flats in the East Thamesmead area. Bexley has recently confirmed that it will be rolling out its incentive scheme to a further 17,000 flats across the area.

The scheme incentivises residents to reduce the amount of rubbish they send for disposal by reducing, re-using and recycling their waste. Residents earn green points as a community based on the amount of residual waste they create and the amount they recycle. These points are then allocated equally between each member of the community taking part in the scheme.

Since the scheme was launched in September 2011, around 1,200,000 Green Points have so far been issued to activated households and local charities, making a cash value of around £3,000, of which, more than £800 has been donated to three selected beneficiary charity projects. While this project is at a early stage, residual waste trends in the phase 1 target area indicate that waste is decreasing particularly across areas of low rise flats. Case study: Camden & Westminster - Bin, scan, win!

Street litter accounts for almost a quarter of household waste in Camden and Westminster. Residents, commuters, tourists and other visitors are already given the opportunity to recycle their waste ‘on the go’ in street bins. However, monitoring has shown that street litter recycling rates are only around 10 per cent and littering is still causing significant cleanliness issues for both boroughs.

Camden and Westminster secured £29,500 from the first funding round of Defra’s household reward and recognition fund to apply quick response (QR) codes to 400 recycling litter bins. The QR code, when scanned with a camera phone equipped with a reader application, will direct the user to a dedicated website that allows them to enter a daily prize draw and access to other incentives. The scheme was launched in April 2012 and will run throughout the period of the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

Camden and Westminster are the first councils to use such technology in the recycling sector to target members of the public. The very nature of the technology means that the target audience is limited to the people with necessary hardware and knowledge to scan the codes. However, the demographics in the areas of central London taking part in the trial includes a large proportion of people who are more likely to be ‘tech savvy’ and to understand the use of the codes.

The councils hope to eliminate 25,000 tonnes of litter and save £1 million.

Working with businesses and third parties

Case study: City of London Corporation - Clean city awards

Launched in 1994, the Clean City Awards Scheme (CCAS) provides an example of a local authority working in partnership with businesses by raising the profile of responsible waste management and recognising and rewarding good practice by encouraging businesses to reduce, re-use and recycle. The scheme now has around 1,600 members.

An awards ceremony and lunch is held each year in Mansion House for all members receiving gold and platinum awards. The CCAS team organises quarterly environmental best practice meetings and invites external organisations to present to participants in order to keep them informed on issues like changes to legislation and updates to recycling and waste minimisation options.

Community based approaches

Case study: Waltham Forest - Furnishing the future

Waltham Forest has been working in partnership with Ascham Homes (its housing management company) and two voluntary sector organisations on ‘Furnishing the future’. The project involves changing the way social housing organisations decorate their properties and manage the waste generated by them. Paint and furniture from house clearances are recycled, restored and resold instead of going to landfill. The project consists of five schemes, one of which enables benefit claimants to complete a 16-week course in furniture restoration. Case study: Waste Watch - Our common place

Waste Watch is working with 23 deprived communities living in flatted properties across eight London boroughs on an initiative entitled ‘Our common place’. The idea behind our common place originally developed from a need to improve flats recycling in deprived communities. With expert guidance and advice, communities get together to discuss what is good and what could be improved within their community. Individuals then form groups to work on where they want to see change by developing and delivering initiatives that bring benefit to their community. Critically, Waste Watch is a facilitator while, as far as possible, all initiatives are led by the community and its motivations.

In total 3,200 people living in these communities encountered the project with 930 participating in our common place initiatives. Most importantly 67 residents help co-design and deliver activities and initiatives in their community. This has led to many activities being taken on and run by the local community without support from Waste Watch, for example sew-shall, a weekly sewing group learning how to up-cycle clothes in the Weir Estate, Lambeth.

Education and communication

Case study: Tower Hamlets - Recycling makes sense in every language

While the recycling rate in Tower Hamlets had increased significantly in the three years up to 2011, further increases were likely to prove a significant challenge, in part because of a combination of factors that make communicating recycling particularly difficult.

Responding to this challenge, a team, including borough officers, Veolia Environmental Services (the council’s waste management contractor) and designers Billington Cartmell, worked together to plan a high-impact communications campaign.

A creative campaign was developed based on translations of community languages with illustrations encouraging residents to ‘recycle more’, using the strap line ‘Recycling makes sense in every language’. Designs incorporated Mr. Recycle More, a large robot made out of purple recycling bins, who is a local figurehead for recycling. The campaign included outdoor advertising on routes carefully selected to maximise cost effectiveness and to target residents rather than commuters. Initial monitoring indicates extremely positive results: from January to April 2011 an additional 250 tonnes of material was recycled compared to the same period in 2010.

Tower Hamlets is planning an anti-contamination campaign in September/October 2012. This will be supported through the Recycle for London communications programme.

Service changes

Case study: Brent, Haringey and Harrow

Brent, Haringey and Harrow have implemented service changes as a means of increasing recycling rates amongst their residents. Both Brent and Haringey have introduced alternate weekly collections of residual waste, supplemented by weekly collections of organic waste. Haringey is seeking to deliver a 40 per cent recycling rate and a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2015, while Brent’s target is to recycle 50 per cent of household waste in the borough by 2014 and to divert 60 per cent of waste from land fill.

As a result of a series of service changes introduced by LB Harrow, the borough’s recycling rate nearly doubled over a five-year period. The recycling rate rose from 27.7 per cent in 2006/07 to 50 per cent in 2010/11 – the second best level of performance in London. Other initiatives

London boroughs and waste authorities are operating a variety of other schemes including: mattress recycling; the promotion of re-useable shopping bags; recycling roadshows; give and take days and food waste collections from estates.

Commentary

If London’s waste authorities are to recycle, compost or re-use 50 per cent of household waste by 2020, there is clearly a need to go much further. Although London Councils has argued that London needs to do more to reduce waste in the first place, recycling, re-use and composting still have an important role to play in helping residents and businesses to take responsibility for their waste and its environmental impacts. It also saves the taxpayer money.

The case studies published recently by London Councils highlight London’s commitment to both reducing the amount of household waste that is sent to landfill or incinerated and to stimulating behaviour change amongst residents. All the approaches considered have produced positive results. However, it remains to be seen whether the use of incentives and rewards brings short-term change and low levels of loyalty to the new behaviour, and equally whether education and communication, while providing less dramatic results in the short term, can provide more sustainable behaviour change in the longer term. Some boroughs have found the introduction of compulsory recycling to be very effective in increasing recycling rates, while others prefer to incentivise individuals or communities to recycle.

It has been suggested that one way to help boost recycling rates amongst London’s transient and tourist population is to have one coherent recycling scheme across London so that recycling practices would be consistent across the capital. However, as London’s recycling rates increase – this could lead to more uniformity between boroughs and waste authorities on what is recycled.

Behaviour change and culture change

Behaviour change and culture change are often conflated when discussing waste and recycling, however it is arguable that culture change is different from behaviour change and is about viewing waste as a resource to be used carefully.

Recent research in the area of waste and behaviour change suggests that local authorities should not necessarily take the lead on communications activity around waste and behaviour change. Communications may be best left to marketing organisations and retailers who have the experience and resources to lead on this work. Campaigns such as Ariel’s ‘wash at 30 degrees’ campaign, launched in 2006 – while not waste related – show the potential for behaviour change that can be achieved through highly visible campaigns associated with well known brands. However, many London boroughs have a high population churn and so feel that they have to put resources into communications around recycling, however this could be done in partnership with the retail sector.

Earlier this year, Joanna Lumley launched the Marks and Spencer ‘Shwopping’ campaign - an initiative which involves customers bringing an old item of clothing into an M&S store each time they come to buy something new. All the donated clothing goes to Oxfam. While campaigns such as this are very effective in terms of raising the profile of an issue (in this case textile recycling), local authorities would welcome reference to local recycling options provided by local authorities and closer collaboration, along the lines of the ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ campaign on food waste reduction run by WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) in partnership with the retail sector. The retail sector already communicates to the public on local authority recycling services through the ‘on pack recycling label’, launched by the British Retail Consortium with support from WRAP. This scheme aims to deliver a simpler, UK-wide, consistent, recycling message on both retailer private label and brand-owner packaging to help consumers recycle more material, more often. However, this on its own may not be sufficient to create behaviour change around recycling.

**Author:** Alice Ellison, policy and projects manager (T: 020 7934 9809)

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